


Looking back on a song

by hanasolomen



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Gen, looking back
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-06
Updated: 2016-12-12
Packaged: 2018-09-06 23:47:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8774473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hanasolomen/pseuds/hanasolomen
Summary: This story is a collection of characters looking back on their lives before the turn.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Beth takes the time to look back on her life. After everything that's happened and how much the world has changed she still sings.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beth takes the time to look back on her life. After everything that's happened and how much the world has changed she still sings.

When she was younger she was always singing. She sang as she helped her mama in the kitchen, she sang to the animals her daddy helped to heal, she sang in church, she sang at school in music class and quietly to herself when she would do her maths. 

Looking back Beth doesn’t remember a time in her life before the turn when there wasn’t music. Everyone had a song. Every person, every animal, every plant had a song because music was life. But back then noise didn’t mean death. It was just a constant. A reminder that you were not alone and back then she didn’t fear the living. 

When she was young the world was bright and loud and full of music. The dead stayed dead and the living were not monsters to be feared. When she was young Beth always sang and she dreamed of a house with a white picket fence keeping the little ones who ran around the yard safe. 

Now the world is dark and Beth no longer dreams of white picket fences. She knows that they will not protect her family. Beth no longer dreams she plans. She plans supply runs with Daryl, she plans how to make the fences stronger with rick, she plans how to stretch the food they have to last until the spring when they can hunt more.

Her life is no longer full of singing and laughter but she still believes that every living thing has a song. She hears them in the silent woods when she hunts and in the rare joke or smile from her family. 

They all have a song and Beth still sings even if the words have changed. Her song is no longer as sweet and innocent as it once was, as she once was. Now it is cold and hard and sad but it is still a sweet melody no matter how dark the lyrics.


	2. Carl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carl barley remembers a time before the turn.

Carl didn’t remember much of his life before the turn. He had been 9 when everything changed. For the majority of his life the dead walked and the people fought to survive. When everything started he had been terrified. His dad had been shot and they had to leave him in the hospital when Shane had come for them. His mom tried to be brave, to keep things as normal as possible. She had worked on teaching him and Sophia English and Math in the camp. Sophia was terrified of the way the world had changed but when Carl watched her he knew that she had been terrified for much longer then the turn. 

Shane and his mom looked out for him. He sometimes felt like Shane was trying to replace his dad. He didn’t put it together until he was older that Shane had been fucking his mom. When his dad came back things changed again. He wasn’t kept away from the fighting he learned to be strong. When his mom died his dad broke. So did he but he had to step up he had a baby sister to protect. Judith was all that he had left of his mom. To this day he still isn’t sure if Judith has his dad’s blood or Shane’s but that doesn’t matter. Families are different now. Before everyone had a mom and a dad.

Now his family is all of the people in the group. Its Michonne, and Daryl, and Maggie, and Glenn, and Beth. They were all family now. He would never admit that he once had a crush on the youngest green girl. Now he saw her as an older sister. 

Before home had been a house on Elm street with two bedrooms and a large back yard. Home had been his mother making dinner every night at 6:30 and his father getting home just in time. Home had been warm and safe and smelled like flowers and cleaner. Now home was wherever they made camp at that time. It was tin can sound traps on the road and walls built as high and strong as possible when they settled down. 

Home was the knife on his belt and the gun strapped to his leg. It was Judith’s quiet laugh and Beth’s shy singing. It was the ability to protect the people he cared about and the knowledge that they would do their best to protect him.


End file.
